Rick Moffat
CFL.ca
Isn’t it ironic? The CFL sack-master couldn’t get to the quarterback on the CFL’s Hall of Fame Weekend.
Elfrid Payton having snuck by so many offensive tackles for so many years, was blocked out of Canada by immigration paperwork snafus. Tracy Ham should be forgiven if he figured his former teammate was just pulling another of his infamous stunts.
Payton laughs it off. “I hope I can get everything sorted out so I can be in Montreal with Tracy September 3rd,” the AWOL honouree tells me from somewhere in Louisiana while his friend and former teammate (and former foe) is being feted by the Canadian Football Hall of Fame.
The former Alouette inductees are drawing deserved high praise from two future inductees who all crossed paths in Montreal.
“I think Elfrid is the biggest character I’ve ever played with in my entire life,” says Anthony Calvillo. “There are so many stories I could talk about, but choose not to because they’re really out there. I mean this guy when he wanted to play, he came and he really brought the pain. It was fun to play with him, but it wasn’t fun playing against him because you knew that it was going to be a challenge for the guys who had to lock him.”
It will be fitting for Ben Cahoon to enter the Hall in tandem with Calvillo, as Ham and Payton do. Calvillo to Cahoon has been the winning combination in Montreal for more than a decade. But Ben confesses winning Ham’s confidence was no easy completion his rookie year.
“I had a hard time earning his trust. One week I had a breakout game in Winnipeg. We were walking to the practice field together and Tracy started talking to me – which was rare! I was thinking he was finally gonna say ‘Hey Cahoon, you’re my guy.’
“Instead he said, ‘You know rook, I figure anything we get out of you is just gravy.’ That’s pretty much all he said beyond ‘I usually don’t throw to the wideout.’ He put me back in my place in a hurry,” reveals the former “Z” wide-side target who has since made a career of courageous routes over the middle. “It was a struggle out there for me… I was the guy with his hand up in class saying ‘pick me, pick me.”
Ham’s smile, as broad as his shoulders, was most likely to come after he’d thrown a pick or a receiver had dropped a sure first-down. That grin often came accompanied by an encouraging clapping of the hands.
“That’s true leadership and that’s somebody who’s strong mentally to never show your weakness,” says the indestructible slotback who climbs ever closer to number one all-time in pass-catching. “Keep your chest out, your shoulders back and your head held high. Tracy would go up and encourage somebody when they were struggling.”
Ben’s clearest on-field flashback of Tracy? “How great he played against Hamilton in a home playoff game. He threw his body around with reckless abandon. He had had knee problems. It just showed me the importance of playoff games. You can pace yourself possibly through a long season, but in the playoffs nothing matters but getting that win.”
As Calvillo’s parallel climb up the all-time passing ladder continues, he reflects on the deepest impact Ham had on his development.
“It didn’t hit me at the time, but Tracy told me he’d tried to help lots of younger quarterbacks. He said ‘Anthony, it wasn’t my teaching. It was you willing to accept it.’ I had never looked at it that way.”
“When I look back at it, I could have really been stubborn and say ‘I’m not gonna listen to you, I’m gonna do my own thing.’ At that point I felt it was time for me to listen to somebody. He did teach me a lot and he got me ready for the things I’m doing now.”
“The biggest thing he taught me was preparation and how to conduct yourself on and off the field. The respect that he had from the guys not only on the field but off the field was something that stood out for me.”
Big-brotherly Ham hopes Payton will be able to join him at Molson Stadium on Labour Day weekend so the Alouettes can honour them together at field level. Will he elude the blocking of the Canadian government to once again flash his “freeze-move” like he’s sacked another quarterback?
With Elfrid invited to a party, you can only expect the unexpected.
